One skeptical reader replied:

"I like your site, man, but you must've been smoking some very fine substances indeed when you came up with this gem. For every example of this "rule," I'll see you with a counter example. You know better than to offer a limp, dubious, unverifiable statement of "fact." Other wise, keep up the good work, and happy T-Day."

Naturally, to leave it at that would be the very limpest of solipsism.

The literature of wine and beer is a record of social meaning attributed to drinks. Anyone who ever writes a tasting note experiences the novelty and variety of a given drink in his or her own private mental space. Once the experience is expressed in words it becomes public. Words have meaning after all, and it is in the realm of words where matters of perception are tested for social relevance.

Let's first agree that fermented beverages are cultural forms. Their differences are learned as much as they are natural. It is interesting that nearly every nation on earth produces its own beer while less than half of them produce wine.* Nations have the greatest inertia of all cultural organisms and so they make an apt proxy measure for what is culturally significant and truly noticeable in drinks.

Sure, it may be argued that there is a higher degree of standardization across these numerous national beers. And it's true: one particularly technological style of light lager, with origins in Germany and well-adapted to modern urban society, dominates the world of beer. But tell the populations of these nations that their national or regional beer is essentially the same as that of the neighboring one and you will have something of a debate on your hands. Clearly someone is discerning differences among the world's light lagers. Shall we put it up for a vote? What do you think: will the Cuban delegation find more variety among Caribbean lagers or among California Cabernets?

And if noticeable differences in drinks have anything to do with the physical differences in their origins, look at the origins of white wine vs. red wine. I know of no region that produces red wine exclusively while I can easily name a dozen** that I assume produce white wine exclusively (lets be impartial and define “exclusively” as a percentage of volume over, say, 98%, shall we?). Not only is white wine produced in a greater variety of regions than red wine, it is also made from a greater number of grape varieties. After all, white wine may be made from any grape while red wine may be made only from red ones.

What about raw physical and sensory data? Red wine diversity is limited by the hegemony of tannins. All red wines have them. White wines may or may not have them, depending on maceration and barrel aging regimes. Tannins foreclose a huge range of stylistic possibilities for wine. They are a homogenizing constraint. Can there be a red/tannic Vinho Verde? Can one imagine a fully skin-macerated red Fino sherry, Moscato d'Asti, Eiswein or Sauternes? Of course not.

If the vastly greater number of constituent grape varieties used to make white wines bolsters the case for their variety relative to reds, then the range of ingredients in beer brewing must be reckoned with.

According to the more common usage of the term, "wine," both red and white, must be made 100% from grapes or, occasionally, grapes along with small amounts of neutral spirits or purified sugar. (Surely no one would argue that wine is diverse because it includes the bastard category known as Vermouth!***)

Wine is restrictive in its formulation. The recipe for beer is delightfully open-ended.

On the store shelf behind me I can find beers with the following whole, natural ingredients: 2-row malt, 6-row malt, water, hops, yeast, wheat, rice, rye, corn, oats, juniper, heather, gooseberry, spruce, elderberry, raspberry, Schaerbeekse cherries, Kellery cherries, coriander, orange peel, cacao, coffee, Muscat grapes, and I suspect various other unlisted brown spices and botanicals.

The difference between wine and beer is sort of like the difference between cheese and restaurant menus. Which of these do you believe is more varied?

The only way I can imagine one might argue (incorrectly) that the set of wine is more diverse than the set of beer is to appeal to the concept of terroir.

Wine has an intricate unpasteurized natural code by which the sensitive observer might comprehend the weather when it was made, the soil in which it grew, and the cultural imprint of indigenous yeasts. The mutations of Chardonnay on one hillside alone can have a fractal complexity for the studied and patient observer. That's what makes wine worth sensing with all of one's being. It's the fact that these differences are at first barely noticeable that makes them so exciting when they are noticed.

But is beer not the same? Drink a warm Sapporo brewed in Ontario next to one brewed in Japan. The difference is striking, and these products are intended to be the same. Beer ingredients are often added after the boil, thereby preserving their original biotic complexity. For example, any accomplished beer taster can attribute taste and aromas sensations in different beers to different breeds of hops, each with its own terroir. (See Sean Franklin’s story). Every individual beer ingredient may have its own complexities of terroir, a potentially manifold variation on wine.

What if we limit the discussion to the most obvious differences? Look at several mundane selections available in each category and imagine what differences among them an unschooled ten year old might be able to glean. I’d wager anyone could immediately discern numerous, obvious differences between Guinness Stout and Miller High Life, for example. There are less obvious differences between Kendall Jackson Chardonnay and brand-name Piesporter and still less between bulk Chianti and Rosemount Shiraz. Think about it: to most people red wine tastes like red wine. Beer may at the very least be separated between pale and dark, bitter and sweet.

Counting the various articulations of beer, red wine and white wine in hopes of comparing them is absurd of course. I hope readers understand that my aim is to test the doors of perception in hopes of opening them, not closing them. Resorting to opiates (Blake), peyote (Huxley), or the pipe (moi?) to do this seems entirely unnecessary when such illuminating engagement can be found simply by issuing provocative rhetorical statements here on the Gang of Pour, statements which can never be verified and endlessly debated.

* In commercial volumes beyond the experimental and trivial.